


A Body of Knowledge You Can't Give Up

by parkadescandal



Series: it starts with a melody [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Ficlet, Fluff, M/M, someone please teach these kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 08:52:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16194197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parkadescandal/pseuds/parkadescandal
Summary: In which the tutor gets totally schooled, and other tropes.





	A Body of Knowledge You Can't Give Up

**Author's Note:**

> [For the tumblr prompt](https://justforshitsandcackles.tumblr.com/post/173934984649/fluffy-prompts): "I heard that!"

Yen Sid makes the stipulation that in order to continue to live and to train in the tower, they must resume normal studies as well.

Sora’s extraordinarily displeased. Riku’s prepared for this. During that lost year he’d looked for diversion within the dilapidated mansion library, often drifting off next to a stack of a book or three with the dust still gently settling on his coat. After a while it seemed DiZ had cottoned on; suspiciously new tomes turned up hidden in crevices and tucked beneath piles--histories, and sciences, and theory--that wing looking more and more like an after school study session than a covert data transfer operation. Riku figured that should he be a pawn at least he be an educated one, learning more and more that DiZ valued the cultivation of these arts in his peons.

He’d used to read stories, enamored with fantasies and other worlds and adventures that he’d recount gleefully to Sora and Kairi, even acting out their favorite scenes until they got them just perfect. But it hurt the heart too much, then, and so he studied.

“I’ve another mission for you, young man,” DiZ had told him one day, and Riku’d tensed up, ready for the worst, and Roxas, and his inevitable avenging angels, but instead he was told to _“collect data”._ He’d pose as transfer student, for a while, falling into the comforting rhythm and routine of school again, for “how else shall I create a convincing facsimile of a boy’s summer homework without a curriculum on which to base it?”

Riku’d been grateful, in a kind of twisted way. He made no friends; he reviewed all his lessons under sterile light along to the hum of a containment pod, waiting for the day DiZ would put the scope of his weapon back into sight.

Sometimes now it’s not much different--even both awake and together during lessons Sora’s more brain dead than he ever was in Naminé’s care. It’s a tough adjustment. Inversely for him, for the last eon or so it hadn’t been much of a priority, and he’s out of practice with any book learning outside of the occasional spell book pushed into his hands to the tune of agitated squawking.

“I just don’t get why we need to learn all of this when there’s so much else I could be practicing!” he says, exasperated, propelling himself back with dramatic force onto his bed.

“So original,” Riku mumbles.

“Hey! I heard th--” Sora starts before interrupting himself with a loud _oof_ \--a textbook has just landed directly on his chest.

“It’s about discipline,” Riku preaches.  “And being prepared for anything. I know I don’t want any illiterate keyblade masters responsible for the fate of the universe.”

“Watch it.”

“Just as soon as you can prove to me you actually can still read. Review this part with me. It helps me get it better when I have to explain it real slowly.”

“Oh, ha, ha,” Sora says, lifting his head up solely so he can sneer right back at him. He sits up, then drags himself back over to the desk to plop down resignedly. “Talk about original. Can’t you think of anything else you’d rather we’d be doing together?”

Riku’s mood changes instantly. He goes stiff, looks away, all the warmth vacuumed out of him. Immediately he tries to change course, opens his mouth to make another sarcastic quip, but it’s too late; Sora’s “ _oh_ ” punctuates the end of that sentence before it even starts.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he scrambles.

“Whatever. Of course not,” Riku says levelly.

“No, no, not of course not. This just isn’t the way I wanted to tell you.”

“ _What_?” he says, face showing clearly that he’s hurt.

“I would have worked up to it, I wouldn’t have just…”

“Are you serious? That’s how bad you want to get out of working? That’s fine. I’ll do this by myself.” He stands up, coolly making his way to the door and out the threshold.

Sora takes a breath, gives him a minute’s head start, and marches out the door after him.

He doesn’t have to go far. He’s down the hallway, hugging his knees and looking sorry for himself. It’s getting old.

“You don’t _have_ to help me, you know,” Sora says, exasperated, sitting down beside him legs crossed.

“You wouldn’t do it on your own. But you don’t have to tease me,” Riku says, practically mumbling into his forearm. His hair falls down all over his face as he looks somewhere just directly off into the distance from Sora’s eyes, head tilted in defeat.

“I’m _not_ teasing you.”

Riku sighs.

“I know you’re not.”

It’s quiet, for a minute.

“I really do like you. More than… More than how it used to be. I mean, I always liked you. But it’s different now.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why didn’t _you_ tell _me_?”

Riku lifts his head, makes to defend himself, and finds all his excuses wanting. He buries his face into his knees.

“I guess I didn’t tell you because I was already happy the way everything is. I like you just the way you are,” Sora says. 

For his troubles he receives a muffled “Oh, _gross_.”

“Hey,” he says, feathers officially ruffled. “Stop that. During the test, every time you said my name? I heard that. The music that must have happened when your sound idea and mine came together? I heard that too. When so much of what you said ended up being about how much you cared about me? You didn’t actually say it, but I heard it. I knew it. And I want you to know how much I care about you, too.”

Riku acquiesces, looking up just enough so that Sora can see part of the sheepish grin he’s entirely unable to control. Sora throws his arms around his neck and gives him a chaste little kiss on the cheek; Riku wraps his arms around him in turn.

“I guess you’re better at this teaching thing after all,” he says, placing silent bets that they’ll spend the rest of the evening here just like this. There was always another lesson for another day.  

**Author's Note:**

> as mentioned, originally posted [on tumblr](http://deathdropdistance.tumblr.com/post/178717721221/if-youre-doing-the-prompt-thing-can-you-do-i) for [crescentsister](https://tmblr.co/mVe74Mc_o9GF1Pfqtktwpxw)'s request but reposted here for i am a petulant womanchild who desires more attention.


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